During the Bush administration, scientists said the safe range was 60 – 70 parts per billion. Instead, Bush set the limit at 75 ppb. The Obama administration had promised to reconsider the level, and had made rumblings of doing so until crying uncle last week. The level is still being enforced at the even more permissive 84 ppb.

Obama cited “regulatory uncertainty,” which can be loosely translated to “jobs,” as the reason for his decision.

Let’s assume for a minute that the safety standard would threaten jobs: How did it become an acceptable public position for companies to say, in effect, that they can’t do business without endangering the population? How did they get the president to make this PR argument for them without even blinking?

“Regulatory uncertainty” isn’t even a neutral way of saying “jobs.” It’s a favorite corporate phrase that basically means, we will stop investing if we don’t like what the government is doing. It’s blackmail.

Obama’s move is evidence of the overwhelming extent to which conservative talking points have come to define what’s true and what’s acceptable even when they are morally and factually incorrect, as they are in this case.

Morally, how does a vague threat to jobs outweigh a scientifically documented threat to public health? A sick population can’t work.

Nor is the position in line with what voters want. A recent bipartisan poll found that 75 percent of voters support stricter limits on ozone.

Factually, the regulation could cost as much as $90 billion for electric companies and car manufacturers to implement. But it would bring $100 billion in health care costs savings. That’s already an economic win for the economy as a whole, but remember, too, that the $90 billion in business expenses could include buying pollution-reduction products made in America, and those create jobs. Indeed, the EPA’s analysis predicted $17 billion in economic benefits from the stricter regulations.

The EPA’s Lisa Jackson has been more effective than anyone else in the administration in making the case for good government, repeatedly noting, for example, that the Clean Air Act generated $83 billion in economic benefits between 1990 and 2010. Obama just laid down his most effective political weapon until after 2012, when he might well be out of office. The only question is, will Jackson resign?